


No Lonely Bridge

by Sarah1281



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-20
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-15 15:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/851008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarah1281/pseuds/Sarah1281
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Javert is not the only one that goes to the Pont au Change that night. Having saved Marius and delivered him to Cosette, Valjean believes that nobody needs him anymore and heads for the bridge only to see a familiar figure there that proves him wrong…</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Lonely Bridge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jumponvaljean (whoatherejavert)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whoatherejavert/gifts).



Valjean didn't know how long he stood in the window, looking down for some sign that Javert had returned to arrest him, before he accepted that that was simply not going to happen.

If he had not encountered Javert outside of the sewers then he would not be alarmed at not seeing him again on this night. Javert may have deeply desired to arrest him after all the times that Valjean had eluded him and the law he represented but he would have been rather busy dealing with the unrest on the street.

Either he believed that Valjean had genuinely given him his address or he did not but he would investigate either way when there was time. Javert's only way of finding him was trusting an address Valjean had willingly offered and so if it was a true address then there wasn't much of a risk that Valjean would run. Javert would have time.

But he had run into Javert outside of the sewers and Javert had, inexplicably, yielded. He had yielded twice. That was not something that Javert did.

If he really believed that boy Marius to be a corpse that hadn't realized it no longer lived (something he had certainly said enough) then it would be perfectly lawful to return the body to his family. But he had let Valjean accompany him as well and then allowed him to return home for one last time to say goodbye to Cosette. He had not expected to be allowed, after everything, but he had to ask and it had been granted. He didn't know how he could manage if he had not been able to bid her farewell.

That had not been a concern when he had been telling Javert where he could be found as he had not expected to encounter him once more before even making it home.

What's more, he had expected to die out there on the barricade in one last, desperate attempt to save a life and make his daughter smile. That would please the Bishop, he thought. He had not said goodbye to her then, even silently, as he had not known he would go until she had retired and he could not bear to worry her by letting her know he was leaving. He would have had no way of knowing when Javert would come for him but it could not have been long.

Javert's actions tonight meant that perhaps he would not have told Cosette what was going on or, worse, the terrible truth of her mother's fate. Valjean would not have believed such a thing possible before tonight, particularly after Javert's cruel and thoughtless words had killed poor Fantine, but it could not be helped. Even if Javert said nothing and did not contradict any lie Valjean might have concocted, Cosette would have to have some sort of explanation for why he was leaving and never returning. Valjean would have preferred that that explanation not be the truth. Perhaps that supposed business in England.

He still did not know exactly what to tell her but perhaps it did not matter. Javert was gone. It would appear that he was not to be arrested after all.

He would have thought he'd be relieved. He was relieved, truly, but somehow not as much as he thought he'd be.

Toulon was hell.

Valjean would not flatter himself that he knew everything there was to know about suffering but he knew plenty and he knew that Toulon was the worst that he had seen. He had spent a full two decades there between his two prison terms. One he had faithfully, if unwillingly, served in full and one God had allowed him to escape less than a year into his sentence for Cosette's sake.

When Valjean had consigned himself once again to a lifetime of Toulon (echoes of Arras flowing through his mind and only an eight-year reprieve before he was back to serve that sentence), when he had spared Javert and told him where to find him…He had not been able to face the thought of Toulon, the memories of that hell. But it was what was right and lawful and he had run out of excuses.

He did not want to go back to Toulon and had spent too many years trying to stay out of it even as he couldn't quite bring himself to believe that he was free. If he was truly not to be returned there then that was good. His soul had been one of his most pressing concerns since all the way back in 1815 (oh how far he had come from those days! How much they pained him to think about) but remembered well the way he had been losing himself once more in the mire of Toulon after Arras.

Javert not arresting him was good. There was no point in disputing that.

But where did that leave him? Cosette was going to get married. That boy Marius would live and get well and take Cosette away.

He would be left alone.

He did not want that. It was one thing to be alone in Montreuil-sur-Mer. He had been alone but not for nineteen years and he was used to it. That solitude after being released from prison had been a blessing. But how could he go back to that after having known the sheer bliss that was the love of another person, the love of Cosette?

Love was not a candle. It could not be blown out so easily. Cosette would get married and leave but she would still love him. She would be so busy once she was married, especially at first, but she might actually try to carve out a place in her new life for him.

But could he take it? He, a convict, a parole-breaker? He who had not seen how his policies were ruining her mother? How could he intrude on their happiness? If anyone found out about him then not only would Cosette face the shame of being the child of a convict but she was born in 1815. He could not possibly be the man who sired her. If they went looking into her past her life would be ruined whether she was rich and married or not. The risk was acceptable when she needed him. To force that potential ruination on an innocent couple without their knowledge…how could he do that to Cosette?

How could he bear not to?

He was barely aware of his feet moving to the door and down the stairs.

Cosette would have no need of him soon, too soon, and then were would he be?

He was walking, he vaguely realized, but wasn't sure where he was going.

Cosette was going to leave and there was nothing he could do. Cosette was going to leave because he had saved Marius. She was going to leave because she wanted to leave and he wasn't enough for her anymore. It was a normal part of growing up, he knew. Jeanne had left back before their father had died. Had that killed him the way it was killing Valjean now? He didn't know, couldn't know.

And it wasn't the same. Jeanne and his father and even himself were blood. Even if they never saw each other again, nothing could ever change that.

He and Cosette…what were they bound by? Tragedy? Chance? Nothing that couldn't be ripped apart.

And that boy Marius had hidden his interest in Cosette for such a long time, as bad as he had been at it, and now he found out that Cosette was doing the same thing. It was understandable that Marius would do such a thing; he did not know Valjean and wanted to steal his precious daughter away. Valjean had also, he was fairly certain, not given off the impression that he welcomed the new presence in his life.

But Cosette…she would hide such a thing from him as well? What better indicator was there that there was no longer a place in her life for him as long as Marius was in it? She could survive losing a father. She had survived losing a mother and everyone must lose their parents at some point. To lose her love so soon, however…No, there was really no question of how it must be.

He would have Cosette for only as long as it took Marius to heal and even then her heart was already gone. She would spend that time worrying for Marius and caring for Marius and having no idea that she was wasting their last precious weeks or months together. It would not be her fault because he could not bear to tell her that he was losing her day by day. And after her wedding…

He was surprised to realize that he was on a parapet on the side of a river. And, what's more, he was not alone.

The man turned when he heard him approach and Valjean recognized, to his surprise, Javert standing there and holding his hat.

Nine years of never having encountered each other at all and now three meetings in one night. How strange life could be. Maybe he would be arrested after all.

A wild look had entered Javert's eye as he recognized Valjean. "You again! Why will you not leave me be?"

"You cannot possibly believe that I intentionally sought you out at the barricades or in the sewer," Valjean protested. "It would not have been in my best interest and I would have no means of knowing you would be there."

"Going to the barricade at all and giving me your home address were not in your best interest," Javert muttered. "But what now? You are too much of a saint to let me die in peace, knowing full well that if I leave this place alive there is a good chance that I will end up arresting you?"

Valjean frowned. "I do not understand you. You speak of dying? Do you mean to-" he lowered his voice, "-end yourself?"

Javert laughed darkly. "I intend to jump right here. If you had been a moment later you could have watched."

What was he to say to that? The idea of Javert, of anyone, taking their own life was too much for him. But it was always so complicated to speak to Javert and he was rather out of practice, even without all of this strange new behavior. Should he have taken Javert's oddness as an indication that he was not well? It had been nine years since they had last seen each other. Perhaps Javert had simply been changed as much by time as he had been.

"I should not have enjoyed that."

"No, I don't suppose you would have," Javert said, sighing.

Valjean eyed Javert warily, hoping that he wouldn't see him jump now. "Why are you here, Javert?"

"I?" Javert repeated. "I am here to jump; I told you."

"But why?" Valjean asked, dumbfounded "Was it those poor revolutionaries? That was not your fault. Even if you gathered as much information as you could and shared it all, those boys were still going to die. I don't know why the National Guard chose to slaughter them all but their superior numbers and weapons left no doubt as to the outcome when the people did not rise."

Javert snorted. "I feel nothing for those traitors."

Valjean was about to ask if he had no pity for even the children but not only had Javert very decidedly not cared about Cosette when poor Fantine begged for her sake but it did not seem rational to try to make Javert feel worse when he was already planning on jumping.

"Then why are you here?" he asked again. "Why do you intend to jump?"

Javert said nothing.

"Come now," Valjean said. "You cannot just jump right in front of me and not tell me why."

"You don't have so much power over me as to prevent me from doing just that should I choose to," Javert disagreed. "And anything you do not want to see you do not have to see."

"I cannot just leave you here alone!"

Javert nodded impassively. "That is your choice. It has nothing to do with me."

"Why?"

Javert sighed. "What would you have me say?"

"I would have you tell me that you do not intend to die this night or by your own hand at all and for you to mean it," Valjean said. "But, failing that, I would have you explain what brought you here. I would have the truth."

"Is it so easy to put such things into words?" Javert challenged.

"It cannot be any more difficult than ending your own life."

There was another long silence and Valjean was not sure what to think of it. Javert was not arguing with him which might be good but he did not agree, either, and he had not moved from the edge. Should he say something more? What? The wrong words could be worse than no words at all.

"You saved my life."

Valjean blinked, unable to see how that would lead to this. Did he feel he should have died and was trying to correct Valjean's 'mistake'? Javert had always deplored kindness and mercy but that was taking things a little too far.

"You have gone through lengths I am sure I cannot even imagine to run from the law. You have done this at least twice. You might have stayed Madeleine forever, wealthy and powerful and in a position to help so many, if not for me."

"You were not the one to identify Champmathieu as me," Valjean objected. "That was Brevet and even without your testimony…I was at the trial. I had hoped not to have to intervene but he would have been convicted even without you."

"Without me you would not have known in time to interfere with his trial and I think we both know the success you would have had once he had been convicted."

Valjean bowed his head. "I cannot be sure…It was not easy for me…But I would not have been thankful that another was chained in my place."

Javert shook his head. "All of this is beyond the point. I found you out in M-sur-M. Without Champmathieu perhaps you would have been investigated. I did tell about the trial. I arrested you and you said I killed that woman. I was the one who was able to give them the information they needed to arrest you again. You had a death sentence and then a life sentence. It was highly unlikely you would have ever escaped and gone to rescue that child. That was a year taken from you both."

"You were not the one to break parole nor rob Petit Gervais and Bishop Bienvenu. You did not force me to confess or even issue that arrest warrant. You were not the one who decided my fate," Valjean said quietly. To hear all that had happened just laid out so plainly…it was overwhelming. It hadn't felt that way at the time, back then when he had just focused on one thing and then another.

"How very magnanimous of you," Javert sneered. "I drove you from your home in that hovel and trapped you in a convent for however long you stayed there. At least a month, I would hope, or else you would have managed to slip away from under my nose yet again. So much time has passed and so many new and dangerous criminals have sprouted up that no one has any idea who you are. No one but me."

Valjean didn't know what to say.

"I have been one constant, always hunting you. I was not always actively looking for you but I was always a threat. Maybe I was not the only source of or even main source of your…legal troubles but I was still a very visible part of that," Javert concluded.

"Forgive me," Valjean said hesitantly. "But are you trying to tell me that you are planning to end your life because of the way you enforced society's will towards me? I told you that I blame you for nothing."

Well, Javert could certainly have conducted himself better in some places, perhaps not frightening poor Fantine to death, but that was an old wound and not one that he could carry around forever.

Javert barked out a surprised laugh. "No, that is not it."

"Then what?"

"You had ample motivation to kill me. I can freely admit that. It was not just vengeance but your own safety and self-preservation that I threatened. You did not even have to end me yourself if you could not stomach the deed. All you had to do was let events take their course and those traitors would have killed me. Your hands would have been clean." Javert sounded almost accusing.

"I could have saved you. I did save you so I know that now. But even before I could have tried. How could I do nothing and call my conscience clean?" Valjean demanded.

The wild look returned to Javert's eyes. "Your conscience! A convict!"

"Yes," Valjean said simply.

Javert seemed incapable of words so they waited in silence yet again.

"You know me well enough," he said finally."I have never believed that desperation can excuse crime. I have never believed that a man can change. You are a convict. You broke the law. You spent nineteen years in Toulon and should, by all rights, still be there. I could send you back there. You saved my life."

"It was the right thing to do."

Javert threw a disgusted look at him. "It wasn't just that, oh no. You told me where you lived. You told me your false name and practically invited me to arrest you!"

"And how did that bring you here?" Valjean asked, not wishing to dwell on it.

"A bad man would have killed me for vengeance or self-preservation. A normal man would have let those traitors do it. You risked your own life to save me. Do not say that you did not because if you were caught they might have killed you, too. And you gave yourself up! You begged me to help bring that corpse home!"

"He's not dead," Valjean corrected.

Javert waved that away. "I have always had a talent for dismissing irrelevant details. But once I was faced with so much of your dammed mercy, mercy which flew in the face of all reason, how could I ignore it any longer? How could I say that it didn't matter? How could I not remember five years of Madeleine the good and unbearably kind? I did not know it at the time but I found out later that you did at Arras. Perhaps I should have wondered how they could have told me I was wrong about you one day and then demand your arrest the next or why you were even there in the first place but I didn't. Now I am. Now I can't stop."

Javert had been alluding to it but to hear himself outright named as the cause of Javert's distress was a difficult thing to stomach.

"Oh, don't look at me like that!" Javert snapped. "You are not to blame here. What should you have done, stayed a bad person so I wouldn't have questions and doubts? Don't be absurd."

"Javert," Valjean said softly, "why are you here?"

"I have only ever wanted to do my duty," Javert said tiredly. "I still want to do that."

"You don't know what your duty is?" Valjean guessed.

Another harsh laugh. "Oh, no. I know my duty all too well. My duties, I should say. They conflict, you see. I cannot possibly fulfill them all and so I am drowning in them."

"Multiple duties in relation to me?" Valjean asked. One, of course, would be to arrest him and it was honestly the only duty he could see.

"I am duty-bound to arrest the recidivist thief who broke parole and escaped from prison," Javert told him.

Valjean nodded.

"And…" Here he hesitated briefly. That was unlike him, Valjean felt, but how could he be sure? What did he really know of Javert? What did Javert truly know of him? "I am duty-bound to repay the man who saved my life. I can think of no greater ingratitude than to arrest you after that, save perhaps to kill you. But there are many who prefer a quick death to years in the bagne."

What could he say to that? He did not truly seek either end.

"You owe me nothing, Javert," Valjean said at last. "That was not why I did it."

"Yes, because the only time that anyone owes another is if the act was done with the intention of accruing a favor," Javert said sarcastically.

"I do not wish you to feel as though you are in my debt," Valjean tried again.

"That is neither here nor there," Javert told him. "Debts have nothing to do with wishes or intentions."

"Surely if I consent to you arresting me then that will solve your problem," Valjean suggested.

Javert stared at him as though he were mad. "You attempted to escape from Toulon four times before finally succeeding on your fifth try. I suppose you did not have much to lose and you did have that woman's child to go off and find unless that was all just words."

"It wasn't."

Javert nodded. "Well there you go. Before that…Many criminals attempted to escape once. You tried four times when you knew you were no good at it and everyone expected it of you. You stubbornly transformed five years into nineteen."

Valjean closed his eyes briefly, trying not to think of the waste. If he had stayed put he might have found his sister again and at least one of his nephew though he could not have joined them in Paris. If he had stayed put, he would never have heard of dear Cosette's existence and she likely would have met a very bad end far too early.

"All of that and now you would so meekly return to prison when anyone who has ever heard of you believes you to be dead?" Javert demanded.

Valjean looked down at his hands. "I do not know how to explain it. I do not wish to return to prison, certainly not."

"You have a strange way of showing that," Javert said.

"I am just tired of running, Javert."

Tired, so tired. How long had this been coming on? He had been so carefree just a few days ago! Well, perhaps carefree was not the right word for it. He had never ceased to fear being recognized and recaptured and abandoning and disgracing Cosette though that fear had faded slightly with time. Even the recent reappearance of Thénardier and his decision to move to England came with the promise of more safety and perhaps finally no longer having to jump at shadows. No, carefree was not the word but it was…something. Things had been different. He had not been so tired then but he could not imagine how that could possibly be.

He had believed he was right to escape prison the first four times because he had suffered so much for so long and his initial crime was not worth even the five years. He knew the laws of France very well now, though he had barely any idea of them back then, and he knew that that one simple act of theft had accidentally fallen into several different traps of making his sentence harsher. But for all of that, sentences so harsh were rarely given out for so minor a matter (in England, the land he had wished to go to, he would have been judged for the value of the item stolen). If he had not been a poacher then he did not think he would have had those first five years at Toulon. But if he had not been a poacher then his family would have starved or he would have turned to theft long before then.

That last time he knew that he was right to escape. It was a harsh sentence and he did not believe that he deserved to be made wicked in prison yet again after he had changed and there was Cosette to consider. He had committed those crimes, and there was the silver that he was not charged with, but Cosette was an innocent and she needed him. He had not loved her yet as he had not met her yet but his obligation to her was greater than his obligation to waste the rest of his life when he still had so much good to do. But now she was old enough to leave him behind. Now she would leave him the moment that that boy was well enough. And if he died then that just meant that Valjean had failed.

"Do you really think it will be any easier to live and die in chains?" Javert asked.

"In some ways, yes. In others…well it is nothing I am not used to, even after all this time," Valjean said wearily. "And I have done most of what I have been condemned for."

Javert raised an eyebrow. "Only most?"

"What was it that they said about me? I was the leader of some gang of bandits? I must confess that that was never true," Valjean told him.

"You never tried to protest it at your trial," Javert pointed out.

His trial. It was not something he cared to think about. Was this how he had felt then? He had tried so hard for so long and made himself as close to the bishop as he could (though of course there were still leagues apart) but in the end none of that mattered. The mistakes he had made, the crimes he had committed, before he had even decided to change were still enough to condemn him. No one seemed to remember any of the good he had done though at least his piety spared his life. He was a convict and it was made painfully clear that that was all he would ever be. He hadn't had the energy to try and argue with them.

"I admit I did not see the point since I was, in fact, guilty of the rest and that alone would have been enough to send me back to Toulon forever," Valjean replied belatedly.

"Without the robbery charge you might not have been sentenced to death," Javert said.

"God did not allow me to be executed for that so it does not matter," Valjean said.

"That still does not explain why you did not try!" Javert seemed irrationally worked up about this case from years ago.

"There were witnesses."

"The witnesses were wrong," Javert snapped.

"I do not suppose that that would have helped me any more than it helped Champmathieu," Valjean said quietly.

Javert drew back, nearly flinching. Valjean had never seen what Javert's reaction was to falsely condemning an innocent man in open court. When he had seen Javert right after he had found out the truth, he was far too full of triumph for having been right all along to think of what might have happened. He might never have known how close he was to taking part in an innocent man's destruction, though no one would have been as guilty as the man who knew that Champmathieu could not be Valjean because he was Valjean.

Before that he had seen Javert so upset that he was at the point of throwing away his entire career because he thought that he had, in good faith, been mistaken about his mysterious superior's past. Yes, he had only sent the letter without proof out of spite and he had said that there was nothing wrong with him suspecting but he had still been horrified at his supposed mistake. But all of that seemed focus on Madeleine's rank and Javert's betrayal rather than any reflection on what might have happened to an innocent man since clearly it had never been in danger of proceeding beyond the initial accusation.

But for a man who strove to be as correct as Javert did, once he had time to think about Champmathieu it would have upset him. Possibly this upset would be mitigated by the fact that he had not been convicted so Javert could continue to trust in the system but he would have been annoyed at himself, at the very least, for having allowed himself to be deceived by the mistakes of others, the mistakes of convicts in particular!

"This isn't about you anyway," Javert said suddenly.

"No?" Valjean asked, trying to hide his disbelief. He was not a vain man, he didn't think, and would not dream of thinking Javert's life revolved around him but he had just spent quite some time complaining about how Valjean had brought him to that bridge.

"You…may have made me see it," Javert conceded reluctantly. "But if it were just a matter of me needing to both arrest and not arrest you I could have simply resigned so I would not have a duty to arrest you anymore."

"Then what is it?" Valjean asked, hoping that this time Javert would finally tell him.

"You made me see that a good man can have a bad past and that even a convict can be a saint," Javert said, closing his eyes and rubbing his forehead.

"I am hardly a saint-"

"Whether you think you are a saint or not is not my problem and not believing yourself to be a saint seems like the far more saint-like belief anyway," Javert interrupted. "I have always been very comfortable with a nice, simple world. The citizens were good, the wretched suspicious, and the convicts bad. Now you come along and change all of that. You may be the only man I have known who exists in this horrid in-between state but, given how long it took me to see it of you, I cannot be certain of that. If one man can do it certainly another can. My nice, orderly society that I have devoted my life to protecting can be turned so far upside-down! That you could save me and sacrifice yourself for others! For me! For no matter what you say, your returning to prison would be a sacrifice. Is such a thing to be endured?"

That didn't sound like it wasn't about him.

"Javert, I do not wish for you to die," he said clearly.

Javert gazed balefully at him. "If you want to help, you might try convincing me that the opposite were true."

Valjean just looked uncomfortably at him.

"Oh, do not act as thought I am arresting some criminal you find sympathetic!" Javert burst out. "Tell me, why are you here?"

Valjean started. "I…"

"Yes?"

"I do not know. I went for a walk."

Javert chuckled darkly. "Ah, I see how it is."

"Do you?" Valjean asked incomprehensively.

"You have spent all this time attempting to convince me to live when you're out here for the same reason!" Javert accused. "I cannot decide if it is another act of sainthood that you would worry so for me right before being driven to end your own life or the height of hypocrisy!"

Valjean heard the words. They were not difficult words; he knew what all of them meant. And yet somehow, arranged so by Javert, they did not make any sense to him.

"What? Javert, I don't…I was not…"

"If it really was just about you then your suicide would certainly solve my dilemma but, as a man who has devoted his life to the law and a man who owes you that life, I could not just watch you kill yourself. I won't do it now. But that's not going to change my mind about my own," Javert said firmly.

"I'm not here to kill myself," Valjean said firmly. The very idea filled him with a kind of horror. There was too much violence in his past for him to welcome it now and ending himself…No, Javert could not be right.

"Then why are you here?"

"It has been a very long, very trying day. I went to the barricades, I encountered you and gave myself over to your custody, I nearly died. I dragged a boy home through the sewers and might have died there had I not encountered Thénardier. There is a great deal to think about and I find I cannot sleep," Valjean told him, more prepared this time.

"And you have come here to die," Javert insisted.

"Why do you keep saying that?" Valjean demanded, suddenly and irrationally angry.

"Because it is the truth," Javert said simply. "I did not deny that my intention here tonight was to end my life."

"That is because that was your intention but it is not mine!" Valjean protested.

"I have seen that look before, Valjean," Javert said seriously. "It is the look of a man who feels that he has nothing left to live for."

"That's not true."

Cosette may no longer need his protection and she might be the only one in his life that had ever cared for him that was not long lost to him but that didn't mean…it couldn't mean…

"You said that you are tired of running. Well, what choices have you if you will not run?" Javert asked.

"There is Toulon."

Javert laughed. "There is the Seine."

Valjean bit his lip and stepped backwards a few paces. "Are you trying to get me to jump, Javert?"

Javert shook his head. "Of course not. I would never do that and I already told you what would happen if you tried to. I would have to stop you and it would just make more work for me."

Valjean bowed his head. "I do not wish to end my life."

"And I can see so clearly that you do. Tell me, what is it about tonight in particular that would send you out here? Why now? You know what it was bout tonight that chased me here. Who was that boy, Valjean? Did you choose him at random? Why were you at the barricades tonight in the first place?" Javert asked.

Valjean took another step back. "I have told you. Today was a very unusual day and there is so much to think about. I couldn't stand to stay inside and so I went out. I did not mean to come here. If you were not here, I would have left before now."

Javert shot him a deeply unimpressed look. "Why were you at the barricades, Valjean? Don't tell me you've become a revolutionary in your old age? I do not believe that you would have fled if you truly believed in their cause."

For a moment, Valjean considered not answering. What business was it of Javert's? But who else could he possibly tell? Javert had already decided not to arrest him and even if that changed there was no reason to hunt Cosette down and tell him about Valjean's past. There was nothing in the law that insisted that everyone must always be aware of someone's convict status though there were many provisions for finding out such a thing. Surely that would be a worse repayment of an imagined debt than just arresting him now would be.

"That boy is Marius Pontmercy," he said slowly. "I do not know much about him but he seems like a brave boy and a loyal friend. He is also my daughter's love and I believe that they wish to wed."

"That girl, you mean, that prostitution's child."

Valjean bowed his head. "After everything she went through, everything her mother went through, the part I played in that…she deserves nothing but the best."

"Yes, by all means blame yourself for the mother's choices," Javert said bitingly.

But Valjean would not be drawn into an argument on the matter of Fantine. She deserved better than to be bickered over years after her death, surely. And he did not want to face anything Javert might have to say about her, especially when he continued to refer to her as the prostitute.

"I do not seek to kill myself," he said again.

"No, of course not," Javert said mockingly. "Do not think that I know nothing of the world. I have seen father's almost sink into a strange sort of sadness when their daughters marry before. I know that you never would allow yourself to have any friends or lovers even back as mayor and you could not hide. Even with your supposed death, I do not believe that you would risk becoming known once again, especially after I found you when you were the beggar giving alms. This daughter of yours is probably the only person you would risk allowing into your life. And now she is getting married."

"Now she is getting married," Valjean said heavily. "Assuming her love does not die and, for all that you were wrong that he is already dead, his survival is far from certain. But what of it? Surely these fathers with married daughters that you speak of cannot all jump into the Seine."

"They do not," Javert agreed. "But I also do not find them out here looking as if they have nothing left to live for."

"You are just trying to distract me," Valjean realized. "You do not wish to speak of the fact that you seek to end yourself and so you turn it around and accuse me of doing the same thing."

Javert moved closer to Valjean and studied him very carefully.

Valjean did his best to stand still under the scrutiny.

"You really do mean that," he said with some surprise.

Valjean frowned, puzzled.

"You have no idea that you came here to kill yourself," Javert marveled. "How can you come here to die and have no idea? You would have been in for quite a surprise when you came back to yourself in heaven."

"Heaven?" Valjean repeated. "You think that I would go to heaven after a suicide?"

Javert shrugged. "You are the man of mercy. Tell me if you think one act of despair is enough to damn you."

"You can't decide to kill yourself while having no knowledge of this!" Valjean insisted.

"I would have thought the same," Javert said. "But I see now that this is not the case."

"Can you stop saying that?" Valjean requested. "It is…uncomfortable."

"I would imagine it would be," Javert said. "Facing a fact that you were not able to face before. You could not kill yourself, for whatever reason, and yet you were going to."

They lapsed into silence.

Valjean did not know what Javert was thinking but he was worried about saying the wrong thing and reminding Javert of his own suicidal impulse. Perhaps that was why he had pretended that Valjean was there to kill himself, so he would have something else to focus on. Perhaps it was even a good thing that he was saying these things instead of jumping. It just did not feel like a good thing.

But they could not stand out there all night.

"Please, Javert, do not do this," he pleaded.

"I should be saying that to you," Javert replied. "I have more of a reason than you do."

"You don't deserve this."

"I think I'll be the judge of that," Javert said stubbornly.

Valjean continued to look pleadingly at him.

At long last, Javert sighed. "Oh, very well. I cannot very well jump with you here determined to rescue me. Or, even if it did not work or you were persuaded not to, knowing that you would soon follow me into the dark."

Valjean thought of protesting once more that he was not intending to end his own life but if Javert needed to believe that, or pretend to believe that, in order to be convinced not to jump himself then he really should just let this stand.

Javert went over to stand by Valjean. "Where are we going?"

Valjean did not understand the question at first, it was so strange. Javert, going with him! Home to Cosette? What a thought!

"You wish to come with me?"

Javert looked at him like he was being difficult on purpose. "Not particularly but I see no other alternative."

"You could return to your dwelling," Valjean offered. Despite his words, he began to walk and Javert quickly fell into step beside him.

"Oh, do not assume that I would be so petty as to tell your daughter about you if I will not even tell the police!" Javert exclaimed, annoyed.

"Then why…?"

"I may not have decided what I am going to do, and I do not see many options, but I have decided what I am not going to do and what I am absolutely not going to do is allow you to jump," Javert declared. "I would try to persuade you not to but you will not even admit to yourself that you are planning on jumping so I cannot trust you there. Therefore I really have no other choice but to stay until I'm convinced that you are not going to end your life."

Valjean's eyes widened. The sentiment was touching, he supposed, but still… "And if you are never convinced?"

Javert treated him to a wolfish smile. "I will start paying rent."


End file.
